CHAPTER IX.

AMERICAN POLISHING PROCESSES

The method of polishing furniture practised by the American manufacturers differs considerably from the French polishing processes adopted by manufacturers in most European countries.  This difference, however, is mostly compulsory, and is attributable to the climate.  The intense heat of summer and the extreme cold of winter will soon render a French polish useless, and as a consequence numerous experiments have been tried to obtain a polish for furniture that will resist heat or cold.  The writer has extracted from two American cabinet-trade journals, The Cabinet-maker and The Trade Bureau, descriptions of the various processes now used in the States, which descriptions were evidently contributed by practical workmen.  The following pages are not, strictly speaking, a mere reprint from the above-named journals, the articles having been carefully revised and re-written after having been practically tested; attention to them is, therefore, strongly recommended.

In these processes the work is first filled in with a “putty filler,” and after the surface has been thoroughly cleaned it is ready for shellac or varnish.  Second, a coating of shellac is next applied with a brush or a soft piece of Turkey sponge.  This mixture is composed of two parts (by weight) of shellac to one of methylated spirits, but what is called “thin shellac” is composed of one part shellac to two of spirits.  After the coating is laid on and allowed to dry, which it does very soon, it is rubbed carefully with fine flour glass-paper, or powdered pumice-stone—­about four coats are usually given, each one rubbed down as directed.  Third, when the surface has received a sufficient body, get a felt-covered rubber and apply rotten-stone and sweet oil in the same manner as you would clean brass; with this give the work a good rubbing, so as to produce a polish.  Fourth, clean off with a rag and sweet oil, and rub dry; then take a soft rag with a few drops of spirit upon it, and vapour up to a fine polish.  With these few preliminary remarks, the following will be easily understood.

=Use Of Fillers.=—­The cost of a putty filler consists chiefly in the time consumed in applying it.  In the matter of walnut-filling much expense is saved in the processes of coating and rubbing if the pores of the wood be filled to the surface with a substance that will not shrink, and will harden quickly.  The time occupied in spreading and cleaning a thin or fatty mixture of filler, or a stiff and brittle putty made fresh every day, is about the same, and while the thin mixture will be subject to a great shrinkage, the putty filler will hold its own.  It will thus be seen that a proper regard to the materials used in making fillers, and the consistency and freshness of the same, form an important element in the economy of filling.